On being tired

I am tired of this timeline.

Many of you, like me, are discouraged and stricken silent by the enabling of the Republican party – we have a madman running us out of weapons and destroying the economy of the world because he is running out of treasuries to loot – and Republicans shrug. I am honestly exhausted.



But then I remember that this isn’t the only time in history people have felt this way.



Gideon was told by God to whittle his army down to 250.

Elijah didn’t know about the 7000 still awake and aware in Israel. He thought he was alone.

Nehemiah’s generation wept at the smallness of what they were doing.



And Paul said, “When I am weak, He is strong.”



There are battles beyond our senses that we know nothing about. The kingdom of God isn’t won with swords and spears and bombs. It is always won with love and joy, patience and faith.



The victors in this world are often mistaken as losers, just as Christ was mocked on the cross. They are hiding in caves, being run out of the pagan temples masquerading as churches, sometimes beaten, poor, hungry…

Think about Hebrews 11 –

“of whom the world was not worthy…” God says.



But far worse than all of this is the betrayal of family and friends, wondering what happened to their moral bearings. Were they just pretending? Why are they OK with rape, with bombing schools and churches, with taking money and healthcare from children.



The hardest is knowing that people you loved and trusted are racist to the core, sexist to the core, violent, irrational, morally repugnant, ignorant, foolish…



Romans 1:29–32

“They were filled with all manner of wickedness, evil, covetousness, malice. Full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, malignity, they are gossips,

slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents,

foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless.

Though they know God’s decree that those who do such things deserve to die, they not only do them but approve those who practice them.”



See…Paul dealt with it too.

This bothers me more than anything else. Watching the evangelical and reformed churches rot from the inside out…



And I feel alone and helpless and not at all confident that the midterms will fix anything, because no matter what the vote says, I don’t know how much of our infrastructure, our treaties, our social nets, our medical care, our food supplies – will remain.



But worse than that, are the millions who will still say, “But Biden’s laptop…”



But here is what I know. Throughout the history of the world, God delighted to do much with very few.

He uses the weak to confound the wise. The humble to confound the arrogant, love to overthrow evil.



Don’t lose heart. It isn’t about numbers. It is about shining the love of Jesus in this dark, dark world



It’s about building a prayer room for your Muslim neighbors and making sure they can worship in peace.

It’s about making sure your Jewish neighbors are free from threat.

Or your Palestinian neighbors can weep over the atrocities in their homeland without fear of reprisals.

Or your gay neighbors being able to live and love and shine their colors.

It’s about being a safe place for the one person that needs you to be a safe place.

Love is spread one person at a time.



Nowhere does the Bible say that we, as believers, are required to point out what is wrong with everyone. Jesus didn’t do it. The apostles didn’t do it. It is a holdover from American revivalism. The four spiritual laws are crap.



Yes, repent from YOUR sins, and report your neighbor’s crimes against others, but be at peace with one another. Love your neighbor as yourself. Talk about beauty and feasts and wine and joy. Talk about love and patience and shepherds and sheep.

Leave conviction to the Spirit. He knows how to do it without crushing and breaking.

And remember:



The kingdom of heaven is for those who mourn, those who are poor, those on the outskirts, those without strength –



And those are the exact qualities that crush Satan’s head.



That’s my evening ramble. And now to bed.